The Chair of Unity Octave

One of the aims and objectives of the Confraternity of Ss. Peter & Paul, as laid out in our Constitutions, is to make reparation for the sins of modernism, particularly for those which have defiled our churches and holy liturgy, and to pray for the return of our brethren separated by modernism and other errors to full communion with the Catholic Church.

Thus in Article 5.6 of the Constitutions of the Confraternity, it is stated that "In addition to the recitation of the Divine Office, the Confraternity recommends that its members recite the devotions for the Chair of Unity Octave, which extends from the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome (January 18) until the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (January 25), which prayers are prescribed for each separate day of the Octave and posted elsewhere on this website.  The chief aim of the Confraternity's prayers in this regard is the return to the true Church of its brethren separated by the heresy of modernism."

Click on the dates below for the complete devotion proper to the particular day within the Octave.

On October 3, 1899, the eve of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the Rev. Lewis Thomas Wattson, an Episcopal clergyman later known as the Very Rev. Paul James Francis, S.A., arrived at Graymoor, N.Y. to establish a community of Episcopal Franciscans called the Friars of the Atonement. A year previously, Miss Lurana White, a devout young woman, had founded in the same place a community of Episcopal nuns known as the Sisters of the Atonement.

For ten years the two communities were jointly known as the Society of the Atonement and lived the monastic life as members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Looking about him on a largely irreligious world, Father Paul grieved most because Christians seemed divided into warring sects and factions. He began to preach corporate reunion of the Episcopal Church with the Roman Catholic Church. Because of this he was banned from the pulpits of the Episcopal Church.

In his brown robe and sandals, Father Paul took his message to the streets and parks of New York. He caused quite a sensation. Father Paul James Francis was determined to carry on a vigorous apostolate for the return of all separated Christians to communion with the Holy See. To further this aim, he inaugurated in 1908 the Chair of Unity Octave (Jan. 18-25).

One year later, the members of the Society themselves received the grace of conversion, and on October 30, 1909, they entered the Catholic Church in a body. It astonished no one when he took his own advice and brought his community with him into the Catholic Church. With the blessing of Pope St. Pius X, they were permitted to continue as a religious society in the Catholic Church and were commissioned to carry on the apostolate of Christian unity as their community aim.

The Chair of Unity Octave was also approved as a Catholic devotion by Pope Benedict XV in an Apostolic Brief in 1916. In 1921, at their annual meeting in Washington, the Catholic hierarchy of the United States unanimously adopted the Octave for all the dioceses in the country.

Under the patronage of St. Peter, the first Vicar of Christ, Bishop of Rome, and St. Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, the Chair of Unity Octave has flourished and grown. It is now observed in many parts of the world.

The above is quoted directly from the official, pre-Vatican II, Unity Octave prayer book ("Devotions for the Chair of Unity Octave") published by the Atonement Friars of Graymoor, New York, 1960, pp. 5-6.